With some members criticizing the transparency of the selection process, the Kane County Board has again deferred making a selection for its vacant District 2 seat, shooting down board Chair Corinne Pierog’s latest pick for the position on Tuesday.
Kane County’s District 2 board seat has been vacant since early October, when board member Dale Berman died at the age of 91. Berman was a longtime resident of North Aurora and a four-term village president, and had been serving on the county board since 2021.
Since last month, Pierog and the board have been considering who will fill the vacancy, but some members on Tuesday expressed concern about how the process has been handled thus far.
In October, the county board declared the seat’s vacancy, and began seeking applications for the post.
A candidate for the seat has to be at least 18 years old, a registered voter, a member of the Democratic Party since Berman was a Democrat and a resident of Kane County for at least a year. Applications were due Oct. 27, and the new member had to be approved within 60 days of the vacancy, or Dec. 1, according to state statute.
The selected candidate would be serving in the role until next November, when the seat will be up for grabs. Four candidates — Matthew Dingeldein, Ellen Nottke, Kimberley M. Young and Martha Davidson — have already thrown their hats in the ring for the 2026 race, according to records from the Kane County Clerk’s Office. The winner of that election will serve out the remainder of Berman’s term, which extends through 2028.
At a Kane County Board Executive Committee meeting earlier this month, Pierog said that, of the interested candidates who applied to serve in the role until November, one was eliminated from the selection process because they had not voted as a Democrat and had previously run for the seat as a Republican.
Pierog then selected a small group of board members to interview the candidates under consideration. A committee made up of Pierog and board members Deborah Allan, Mohammad Iqbal and Myrna Molina met on Nov. 13 to consider the eligible candidates, but did not publicly make a recommendation at the time.
Then, on Nov. 17, the full board met, and Pierog recommended Berman’s widow, Mary Berman, for the seat.
At that meeting, Pierog said that other candidates under consideration were interested in running for the seat when it is up for election in 2026. She expressed concern that, with early voting beginning in just a few months for the primary election, selecting one of those candidates to fill the seat now would allow them to claim to be the incumbent.
“Essentially, the county board could possibly be perceived as endorsing that candidate,” Pierog said at the meeting. She said it raised “an ethical question” about if the appointment could “unfairly benefit one candidate over the others.”
The board moved to discuss that suggestion in closed session on Nov. 17, but ultimately tabled the matter.
Then, on Tuesday, the question of filling the vacancy again came to the board.
Pierog noted that Mary Berman had withdrawn from the process, and spoke of what qualities she hoped to see in the temporary candidate for the position.
She said the county should “bring in some new people who are in their 30s, their 40s, to give them an opportunity to get started.” She also pointed to a need for “business savvy and knowledge” on the board, and an interest in sustainability and environmental issues.
For those reasons, Pierog said, she was bringing forward a resolution to appoint Matthew Dingeldein to the seat. Dingeldein was one of the original candidates who applied for the seat — and has since filed with the Kane County Clerk’s Office to run in 2026.
That move received pushback from the board, several of whom expressed concerns with how the process had gone thus far.
“We’ve not handled the District 2 vacancy process as clearly or transparently as the public deserves,” board member Michelle Gumz said on Tuesday. She went on to say that the board’s “responsibility was to move forward with a process that residents could trust.”
Gumz also offered an apology to all of the individuals who applied for the seat, saying the county board “fell short.”
Board member Deborah Allan said she initially supported the appointment of Mary Berman, echoing Pierog’s original rationale that selecting any of the other candidates “is putting (their) thumb on the scale” in the upcoming election.
“I am not sure … how to solve this problem,” Allan said.
Board member Alex Arroyo, noting his own experience being appointed to his seat on the board less than a year ago, also criticized the board’s handling of the matter.
“I’m embarrassed for this board,” Arroyo said, indicating that he would be abstaining from the vote on Dingeldein’s appointment as a result. Arroyo’s appointment also generated some criticism from the board about its process for filling vacancies at the time.
Arroyo said the county needs to settle on a process for how vacancies are filled going forward.
“We (have) got to think of what’s going to happen here,” Arroyo said. “There will be other vacancies.”
At the meeting, board member Jon Gripe asked what would happen if the measure were to fail, given that the board was approaching the 60-day mark since the position was first vacant, which was their deadline to fill the position.
Assistant State’s Attorney John Frank said it’s “kind of up in the air” as to what the county does in that case.
The board ultimately went into closed session again to discuss the matter, and came out of it with a new candidate suggestion: Kim Young.
Board member Jarett Sanchez moved to amend its measure to have Young appointed to the seat, which Frank noted would not have legal authority if it passed unless Pierog agreed to the change, which she didn’t.
The suggestion to appoint Young failed, however, with only members Sanchez, Mohammad Iqbal, Chris Kious, Cherryl Strathmann, Vern Tepe and Mavis Bates voting for it, and several board members abstaining.
Then, Allan moved to table the measure, but that suggestion also failed in a split vote.
Finally, the board took a vote on whether to appoint Dingeldein, but that measure, too, failed in a split vote, with board members Allan, Bates, Kious, Sanchez, Strathmann, Tepe, Sonia Garcia, Clifford Surges, Bill Tarver and David Young voting against it, and Arroyo, Leslie Juby, Michael Linder and Bill Roth abstaining.
As for what’s next, Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser, in an emailed statement provided to The Beacon-News, said the board can bring up another resolution any time before the 2026 election, but it will be outside the 60-day timeline outlined in state statute.
The law “does not state what will happen” after that 60-day deadline passes, according to Mosser. If the board appoints someone after Dec. 1, Mosser said it will be “presumed valid unless it is challenged.” The board could also opt to not appoint someone at all, in which case the seat would remain vacant until it is filled via the 2026 election.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
